Many athletic teams practice in preparation for an upcoming game against an opposing team. For example, it is quite common for football players to review and study game film of an opposing team a week or more before a football game. During preparation, it is common to practice for an upcoming game by running plays in which a scout team opposes a first-string team. The first-string team generally comprises the starting players on the team. These players generally play in the game for a significant portion of game time, if not for the entire game. A scout team is a group of players that are part of an athletic team that are generally not starting players. During practice for an upcoming game, scout team players attempt to emulate the play style of the opponent based on scouting reports and/or game tape of the opposing team. Individual scout players may also attempt to emulate individual players on the opposing team that play the same position on their respective teams and/or have similar athletic abilities as the scout player emulating the opposing team player. This allows the first-string team to practice for the opposing team by practicing against the scout team, which helps the first-string team to anticipate the opposing team's play calls on offense and defense. This also allows the first-string team to practice for individual players on the opposing team by practicing against a player having similar athletic abilities.
Because the scout team opposes the first-string team during practice, it is preferable for the scout team to emulate the opposing team as realistically as possible. To do so, it is best if the scout team can emulate the various plays and packages each opposing team presents in a game-time setting. Generally, alerting the first-string team players that a particular player on the scout team is emulating a certain player on a particular play accomplishes this task.
When playing a game against an opposing team, any individual player on the opposing team can be identified by the number on the player's jersey. However, when practicing for the opposing team, scout team players typically do not wear jerseys with numbers. The primary reason is that the opposing team changes from game to game, and consequently the player numbers of the players that the scout team is emulating also change from game to game. Instead, current practice is for scout team players to differentiate themselves by wearing a jersey color different from the jersey color of the first-string players. However, this method does not allow a particular scout team player to be identified as representing a particular player on the opposing team according to jersey number.
Additionally, many players, especially younger players, often do not properly don practice jerseys over pads that are typically worn under jerseys. For instance, a player will sometimes simply drape a practice jersey over his head to differentiate scout team from first-string players. Another method for differentiating the scout team players from first-team players is for the scout team players to wear markers or skullcaps on each of their helmets. However, it is often difficult to keep the skullcaps on the helmets during practice. Thus, currently utilized methods of differentiating scout team players from first-string players during practice are not effective.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved method for athletic coaching that allows a scout team to more simply and realistically emulate an opposing team's players during practice. In addition, there is a need in the art for a system and method for using practice jerseys for coaching a sports team.